


Drabble Dump 001

by Anonymous



Category: THE iDOLM@STER: SideM
Genre: Canon Compliant, Drabble Collection, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Pre-Canon, Pre-Slash, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-16 00:34:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29198439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: "You can leave it to me!" he says. "I don't know about cooking, but I'm fairly confident in my helping skills!""I'm actually surprised Jirou-chan-sensei has never kicked you out yet." She hands Rui a spare apron from the hanger, ushers him across the room to the second row table from the teacher's podium.He doesn't doubt that they'll make something at home together later. At the very least, if not some type of dessert, they'd have chocolate mixed into their curry for dinner. That's just the kind of person Mister Yamashita is.-----A collection of SideM ficlets I've sporadically written over the years, plus random passages from abandoned ideas.
Relationships: Hazama Michio/Maita Rui/Yamashita Jirou, Maita Rui/Yamashita Jirou
Kudos: 2
Collections: Anonymous





	1. 001 - 002. Valentine's Day [JiroRui]

_001._

"Did you... want to join us, Rui-sensei?" 

Rui jumps, slightly, finds that he's staring back at a member of the Confectionery Research Club, instead of watching them methodically weigh and prepare today's ingredients on the counter. He had completely missed the door sliding open, a student peeking through the gap. 

He wonders how long she had been staring at him, even, her head tilted to one side.

"Oh, um." It isn't like him to be this timid. He starts fiddling with his fingers, looking just past the top of her head, then up, at the door frame.

He's been weird all day. He knows this. 

The sun's starting to set, too.

"If you guys don't mind?"

Much longer than usual, the seconds it takes between looking blankly out the windows, eyes chasing after hallway corners, a summer smile, an easy wave of his hand, just by the ends of his hair.

Rui isn't clueless as to why, and neither is this particular student, it seems.

A part of him hopes, still, that any hint of colour that might have shown on his face, is just the sky, streaming through the glass, dusting pink across his cheeks.

"We were going to make this batch for the teachers, anyway," she huffs, an amused kind of exasperation in the way she pushes the door further open. "It'll be nice to have an extra set of hands!"

He laughs as he walks in, flexes – or at least pretends to, with what little muscle mass he has – in a show of what he hopes to be dependability. 

"You can leave it to me!" he says. "I don't know about cooking, but I'm fairly confident in my helping skills!"

"I'm actually surprised Jirou-chan-sensei has never kicked you out yet." She hands Rui a spare apron from the hanger, ushers him across the room to the second row table from the teacher's podium. 

He doesn't doubt that they'll make something at home together later. At the very least, if not some type of dessert, they'd have chocolate mixed into their curry for dinner. That's just the kind of person Mister Yamashita is.

"You're just in luck, though!"

But for nowー

"He really liked the dried mango-filled one last year."

For nowー

"It was super hard to find it this time round but we managed somehow!"

The student smiles while she sets out all the the different ingredients in front of him, pulling an extra copy of the recipe across the table.

"I just thought that we'll put you in charge of making Jirou-chan-sensei's share!"

For now, it would be nice, to give this a try, too.

\------------

_002._

"Uwahhh," Jirou says, theatrics falling as flat as the tone he takes. "I didn't think my students hated me this much."

Rui could see him smile, through the quiver at the edge of his lips he struggles to force into a frown, the thumbs he gingerly runs over the plastic packaging he holds in his hands. He's feels like looking away, every time he's reminded of the odd bumps on the misshapen lump of chocolate.

Jirou's fingers knocks against the pink ribbon tied over the top, falling over his knuckles. 

He hears the rest of the Confectionery Club students bustling outside, down the hall behind him. 

"Iー Uh." A scratch at his cheek, a short glance away. "Made that one."

Then, quieter, "I don't think your students would ever hate you, Mister Yamashita."

"I wonder about that, sometimes." It's too early to tell, Rui thinks he had meant, instead. You'll never know what'll happen, when you're here, for a while. 

"They're the ones that told me you liked these kinds, especially?" he tries.

"Is that so?" Jirou hums, tilts his head back, quiet for a few seconds. Mulling something over, perhaps. 

Something. Rui isn't quite sure.

"Ah, well, thank you, I suppose." He squeaks, hearing Jirou's voice so close to him, at the warmth he feels settling over the top of his head.

Rui waits, spends a moment letting Jirou ruffle through his hair, watches the way he looks up, away, anywhere but him.

"We should head home. Maybe stop by the super market first," he says, more to Rui's shoulder, the sunset falling off the seams of his jacket. 

There's a barely noticeable stagger in the next breath Jirou takes.

"Maybe you'd want to make another batch? Together, this time?"


	2. 003. Pre-Debut [Jirou, Gen]

_003._

"Do you want it styled any particular way?" the hairstylist asks, looks at him through their reflections in the mirror.

Instinctively, Jirou reaches for his hair, twirls the loose ends closest to his cheek. "I don't think I'd want anything cut?"

"Good call. Your hair has amazing volume, Yamashita-san! It'd be a waste to!" she nods, all sagely wisdom. She reaches for the cart of styling equipment next to them, pauses, for just a millisecond, when she catches sight of Jirou's belongings on the table.

The edges of her mouth pulls up, a gentler sort of smile, as her eyes pass over the Rollei 35s Producer-chan had lent him.

"I've heard from the Producer that you like photography?" She begins picking through a drawer of combs, fastens a few clips onto her apron. "Do you want to take a picture of yourself before we proceed?"

"No, I..." Jirou fiddles with his fingers under the barber cape, ghost over where the film winding lever would be on the back of the camera. "...Don't really take pictures of myself." 

It's not like I'd lose this piece of myself, either.

Jirou stops, a staccato halfway mid-turn, from hiding his face into his shoulder, an attempt at laughing himself off. "If anything I'd take a picture of Rui if you guys didn't kept his hair the way it is"

"If you say so..." The hair dresser taps the tip the comb against the side her chin. She smiles, bright, brings her arms out in a mock flex, the very picture of confidence as she begins reassuring him. "Well, then, leave everything to me! It'd be like magic, I promise."

\-------

"What did I tell you?"

He doesn't realise he had closed his eyes. The hairdresser's voice suddenly coaxes him out of where he had probably fallen asleep. 

"Now that's an idol worth taking a picture of!"

The lights overhead dyes the back of his eyelids orange, warm. 

It's bright, when he opens his eyes.

His reflection in the mirror isn't the one he greets every morning - colour in his cheeks he can't quite hide.

"Haha, you're right. Though, I'll let you guys take care of that."


	3. 004. First Meetings [JiroRui]

_004._

They stop. Somewhere, he thinks the soft echoes of their footsteps might have still lingered, in a moment's daydream.

He wakes, the moment he sees him turn, sunshine seeing him off a the door.

“I’ll see you at lunch, then?”

Jirou watches the linoleum floor, the toe of Rui’s shoe connecting with its shadow. He feels footsteps reverberating, from the students in the hallway behind him, the ones pattering to their seats, in the sliver of the classroom he could see over Rui’s shoulder.

“Rui―” The morning filters through the windows onto the tips of his fingers, falls right between his knuckles when he stops, a hand reached out in a moment’s hesitance. Jirou draws back instead ― scratches his cheek, the back of his neck ― looks up to the ceiling as he points to the side of his head. “Ah, um― yeah.” he tries, sheepish.

“Oh,” Rui says, as he reaches up to comb through his hair, again, when he feels the soft pink petal brush against his thumb, “Oh!”

“You’ve had that in your hair all morning,” Jirou chuckles, quiet, hidden behind the sleeve of his lab coat. “Don’t want to let the kids think they could bully the new teacher.”

“That’d be terrible! I’d go home crying and it’d be your fault you didn’t tell me!”

Jirou blames the ache in his cheeks, the warmth around his eyes, on spring sickness. He doesn’t think he’s ever been bothered by pollen before, but there couldn’t have been anything else, other than the open windows in the hallway.

His forehead doesn’t feel warm under his palm. Though he stops to look, out across the inner yard to the pots lining the south building’s corridor.

The clivia lilies his previous third years planted are in full bloom, orange against the half wall, under the overhang.

"Peony flowers," he begins ― unwitting, idle ― barely behind a breath. "Scattering, overlapping. The odd stray petals."

A poem slightly off-season, the scent of summer trickling past, settling in.


	4. 005. Red String [Poly S.E.M]

_005._

Jirou doesn’t remember how the conversation had started in the first place. He’s trailing behind Rui, a few steps behind, down an aisle in their neighbourhood supermarket, a shopping basket at his hip.

“Have you heard of that old fairytale? The one about the red string?”

Rui stops to take a pack of biscuits from the shelf, turns it in his hands to read off the back.

Jirou instinctively looks down. He isn’t really sure what he had expected, when he sees nothing in the air between his hands, his shoes, the faintly speckled white of the ceramic tiles. 

‘No,’ he wants to answer.

It’s not quite in his character – or rather, he hasn’t let himself, not in a while – to think of how he’s connected, to the world outside his extent. He feels a little self-conscious, in the way he scratches the back of his neck, needlessly aware of a phantom touch along his pinky finger.

“I’ve always thought that mine always connects to my family dog back home.”

The way Rui speaks is light, gentle, almost, quiet between irregular mechanical beeps from the cashier, the occasional chatters, shuffling footsteps. It’s near empty, this late at night. He puts the cookies back onto the shelf.

“You know, Mister Yamashita?” He laughs, soft, a little rise in his shoulders. “I’ve been told that love comes in different forms.”

“Sometimes, each knot branches out and breaks.” The tips of Rui’s fingers linger a while, in the air before he turns, away, a few steps forwards.

“Sometimes, it isn’t quite a straight line.” He twirls on the back of his heel, this time, to face him.

Jirou suppresses the urge to play with his hair, pulling the strands down over his face.

“It just takes a little courage, to answer those feelings.”

Rui smiles, just as he did the first time they’ve met. He’s reminded of their time at school – late may, a light drizzle, carnations and hydrangeas potted in rows along the outdoor corridors. His hands had been cold, then, brushing against his knuckles, red, as were his cheeks, accepting the beaker of coffee Jirou had offered.

He realises now, that that was his first peek out from under the cover of his umbrella, for the longest while. Red ribbons limp around the ferrule, frayed at the edges. His image of Rui back then had been a gentle tug, an invitation, red of his own splaying from in-between the gaps of his fingers. 

Jirou wonders, if he has already done his part. Sunlight on his fingertips, red strings stretching further, interlacing, connecting him outwards. 

“And I’m glad you did,” Rui says finally, grinning just the slightest bit brighter.

“Only because you were the first to call out to me,” Jirou says. He looks away, tries to hide his embarrassment in the crook of his neck.

“I wonder if that’s true, really!” Rui laughs, as he barrels over to his side. He’s warm, next to him, tangible weight between the sleeves of their coats. “I’m happy you think so, though.”

He’s looking at the cookies on the shelves again, reaches out for a different one from before

“We should head back soon. I actually feel bad leaving Mister Hazama alone at your place.” Rui drops the pack of cookies into the basket – mostly as an excuse to nuzzle into his shoulder, Jirou would assume. “But you seemed like you needed to talk about something.”

Oh, right, they were here to get snacks and extra ingredients for their hotpot.

Or Jirou, needing to take a walk, mostly, seeing carnations beginning to appear in florist store fronts on their way home

“He’s probably already taking it out over reorganising my entire spice rack.”

A few years ago today, he would have been asleep, under the covers of his futon, static from the second-hand box television he had left on. He doesn’t think about it much – or at least, tries not to – but some days, his footsteps still feels noticeably heavier.

Some days, the light in his own home casts much too far into the corners of a one room apartment that clearly wasn’t made of old wood, the other end of where his ribbon had been cut short, home in the white noise of someone else in the kitchen or at the porch.

“But Rui?” He starts, one step before moving out of the aisle. “Thank you.”

Rui looks down for a while, plays with a loose strand at the hem of his shirt. He tilts his head up, back at him, and asks, “I’m going to assume you’ve said that to Mister Hazama as well?”

If Rui was the first to reach out, up and over his head, threading through the tangles, then Michio had started out as the stranger at the bus stop. Keeping a fair distance, but company, nonetheless. Conversations about the weather as they wait, even when obviously, it’s a downpour, outside of their umbrellas, the roof overhang.

Michio’s own red string had always been a hair’s breadth distance, not quite in the way Rui’s was. When Rui’s was an active encouragement, Michio’s was a grounding presence, the quiet reassurance knowing that he’s right there, whenever Jirou is ready to take that one, single step, bridging the gap.

The tip of his umbrella is tied into bows, now. Red spanning between the three of them, and then, hopefully, one day, extending out into the world further beyond that.

Jirou wouldn’t have dreamt of this, those same few or so years ago.

But then again, he wouldn’t have thought to dream at all.

He sighs, his steps a little lighter, wistful. “I don’t think I could say that enough to him, really.”


	5. 006 - 007. Home [Jirou, Gen, Alchemist AU]

_006._

“I realise that it wouldn’t be within my rights to ask this, but,” Jirou hears the breath Michio takes to steady himself. He thinks he might have hear the grip he tightens around his little sister’s hand, as well – for strength, perhaps – in the small gasp she lets out. “Are you sure?”

He’s not. 

But he doesn’t think he could wake up to see that same signboard through his attic room window, hanging by closed door to a quiet storefront. 

So he pulls it down, gently, from its hooks. 

“You’re always welcome at our family’s atelier,” Michio says. 

“I know,” Jirou says. He doesn’t look back over his shoulders to the Hazama siblings, keeps his head down, smiles, as he sets the signboard down against the wall. “Thank you.”

Atelier Sorrel is a memory of his parents, its name carved in applewood left outside for dusk to cover, behind a bed of hyssops Jirou had gathered from the garden.

\--------

_007._

“I’m home,” Jirou whispers, a bouquet of cattleyas cradled to his chest, his travels in a knapsack slung over his shoulder. He doesn’t expect a reply, likes to think himself prepared. 

He’s still a little surprised at himself, though – that he doesn’t take more than a few moments of hesitance, just under the door frame, stepping into what should have been the familiarity of his family’s old atelier. 

He doesn’t think he’s ever seen it this dark at this time of day. It’s quiet, in the open space where he remembers a steady bustle of customers, and behind the counter where the register shouldn’t have been covered in a layer of dust. His mother would have noticed him by now, a small wave above her head, a kind, gentle smile. Jirou tries not to grit his teeth, breathes, deep, deliberate, with the steps he takes to the workshop in the back room.

He knew that he would come home to this. Everyone else had their families present, at the end of graduation ceremony. Jirou didn’t look up, from the creases on the parchment under the Head Professor’s hands, his name printed in calligraphic ink. He wasn’t brave enough, knowing that two empty seats would have greeted him instead, if he had even slightly, just tilted his gaze up and over, past the rim of his certification as a licensed alchemist. 

“Alright, then.” Jirou leaves the cattleyas by the window over his father’s desk – he’ll have to remind himself to find a vase, later – doesn’t remember where he had tossed the canister with his new certificate, between searching through the shelves and cabinets for materials his parents might have left behind.


	6. 008 - 010. Awajishima [Michio, Gen, Slight Poly S.E.M]

_008._

"Awajishima?"

He hears the clink of Producer's teacup, set down on the saucer by their arm, louder than his own voice. Michio instinctively looks down to his own cup of tea, cooling gradually, in the course of their conversation, untouched.

"Of course, I understand if you feel you aren't ready."

He doesn't need to look up to know exactly the kind of soft, patient smile Producer definitely has on their face. He hears it in their voice, the shift of their finger folding atop each other over the table.

"In the end, the choice is yours."

Michio catches a glance of his reflection across the surface of his tea. His brows furrow further, the moment he sees the downturn pull at the corner of his lips, how visibly troubled he looks from the outside.

Yet, as always, his Producer guides him, as gently Michio needs him to be.

If nothing else, he wants to be someone who can respond to that presence, to meet them in the middle ― to meet them at the end.

"Would―" His breath catches. He breathes, long, quivered, a suspended pause before he tries again, "There be a chance for me to take post as something else?"

\---------

_009._

"Wow! You look positively marvellous, Mister Hazama!" Rui gushes, his excitement barely contained in the way he bounces, walking circles around Michio.

He's fairly sure he has given him a mild headache by now, from the way he's starting to lose his footing, but Rui does one more perfunctory lap, just in case.

Okay, yeah, maybe that last twirl as he pops back in front Michio was technically more than just a little bit unnecessary ― he could see Michio scrunch his eyes closed at this point ― but he can't quite reel in his excitement. Seeing Michio in a baseball cap, a polo shirt that in any other circumstances would have been unbefitting of an idol was somehow, somehow, a novel experience, in its own way.

Perhaps, it's less all of that, and more the arm band he has pinned on his sleeves, 'Staff', embroidered in large, bold letters.

He hears Jirou laugh from somewhere behind him, a chuckle that he has no doubt, mirrors the fondness he also feels.

"Though, I'm not going to lie." He doesn't even try to hide his smile the way he usually would have, chuckles, as he rubs the back of his neck. "It reminds me a little of when we used to chaperone class outings. You'd wear the same things."

Michio brings a curled hand to his lips, tilts his head, looks away. Rui would have missed the slight show of teeth had he blinked. It's an easily overlooked habit, he realises. Michio is careful, even on an unconscious level, not to leave marks as he thinks, biting at his knuckles.

It's kind of cute, Rui thinks, the way that Michio himself is probably unaware of this.

"It wouldn't be much different, I don't think," Michio says, slow, piecing his thoughts together as he goes. He nods once, then looks up at them, resolve clear in his eyes. "Now, and then, as well, it has always been my duty to lead, to show."

Rui finds himself following Michio's gaze, a little past their heads, the sea at a point in the distance behind them, peeking from under the rolled entrance of the organiser's tent.

"This way, I hope to best convey the warmth, the way this town had brought me up, up to this point."

His smile, fleetingly, almost, at that single second, shows Hazama Michio not as an idol, but as an existence, a person, first and foremost.

"I would not leave this in another's hands."

\---------

_010._

The live was unlike anything Jirou had ever experienced before. He leaves the venue dazed, barely registers his own voice as he says his goodbyes, thanking the staff and excusing himself for the day.

He only remembers by way of muscle memory, to put on his hat, a mask and a pair of glasses over his face as he lets his feet take him on a short walk.

Both Ishikawa and his suburb back in Tokyo weren't anywhere near the sea. He doesn't have childhood memories of salt-scented breeze, the sand wandering in from the coast to the pavement, gravel under his soles.

But performing on a stage overlooking the sea, watching dusk colouring the crowd as the sun sets felt nostalgic, almost. It feels like home, when he hadn't had one to go back to, for as long as he could remember.

Every step down he takes is slow, he lets the tide greet him ― sparse splatters on his toes, his heels finally sinking into the sand.

"Ah." He thinks he might have followed a flutter of blue, somewhere further down the shoreline. His eyes lands first on bare feet, toes idly toeing patterns in the sand, and then he stops, at that same blue hemline of a chiffon dress, a pair of sandals hooked over two fingers.

Even in the dark, even that this would have been his first time even seeing her, he thinks he recognises the way she carries herself, familiarity in the way the wind blows back against her wavy hair.

He takes a chance. He finds that his hand has already moved, faster than his thoughts.

"Hazama...chan?" he says, falters, not knowing actually, how to call out to her. Now that he thinks about it, Michio never told them her name.

The girl looks back, over her shoulder, and for a split second Jirou thinks his heart might have swallowed him whole.

He hope that he manages to come off as less awkward than he feels. He waves his hand, pretends that he's not, in fact, just awkwardly holding his hand up in the air, not knowing what to do.

"Yamashita Jirou-kun?!"

Thankfully, he had guessed right, if the way her eyes light up, and the picture-perfect copy of the way Michio's hands would would shoot up, covering his mouth in surprise. Her sandals fall to the ground with a dull thump, resounding in the air between the two of them.

"Oh, thank goodness." He breathes a little easier, his smile a little lopsided, palpable relief in the way his shoulder finally relaxes, his hand making its way to scratch the back of his neck instead. "I didn't know what I'd do if I had the wrong person."

"That would be really bad," Hazama-chan chuckles, albeit a little darkly. "'Idol Yamashita Jirou of S.E.M Fame, Caught Soliciting Young Women in the Dark of The Night.'"

The way her tone balances the perfect amount of casual horror and genuine, playful reprimand immediately hammers into Jirou just how similar she is to her brother. He does not know if he should be amused or scared, honestly.

"How did you know though?" She even tilt her head the same way, down to the slight furrow between her brows.

"Just a guess?" Jirou offers. "You guys have the same hair?"

"Still though! Who knew we'd run into each other here!" She laughs, as she tucks the edge of her skirts under her knees bending down to pick up her sandals. "I don't think I even told Oniichan I was coming."

"You didn't have to. He wasn't performing." Jirou pauses, wonders if Michio had even told her that he's here with them at all.

"Are you kidding?" Pouting, she seems genuinely a little offended that Jirou would even think that. "I'm a fan of S.E.M with or without Oniichan."

"I think he'd appreciate it if you didn't treat him like he's optional." He laughs, in the shared understanding that S.E.M wouldn't have happened in the first place, without Michio.

There's no way he could forget. He owes a lot of himself to Michio.

He's sure that she knows this, too. More than anyone.

"He would also be glad to know that you're here, I think," Jirou adds.

"You think?" Her voice wavers, peters out into a breath. She grips the straps of her sandal tighter in one hand, the fabric of her dressed balled together in the other. The way she hid her smile, as well, was all too familiar.

Her loneliness felt all the more tangible, when she looks away, out to sea, as she continues, "Folks back home always wondered why he never seems to come to perform here.

She would have been one of the first people whose life Michio had impacted ― one of the many lives that Michio treasures, nurtures, like his own.

"I'm sure."

Just as Michio had shaped him, his sister, the people around him ― his sister, in turn, as a part of this town, lead Michio to where he is now ― to where he would inevitably continue, onwards.

"Tell you what?" Jirou bridges the distance between them, crouches right in front of her, levels their line of sight. "It's your choice, in the end but..."

He wants to thank her, too, somehow. For coming to the live, for supporting Michio long before they could ever have.

"Want to exchange numbers? Rui and I would love to have contact with someone who knows Hazama-san better than we do. For presents and stuff, you know? And you, well..."

He looks aside, to where Hazama-chan had turned away to just a while back. The night brushes against the horizon where the stars meet the sea, the waves, ebbs and flow, carries the reflection of the sky onto the town Michio calls home.

This is the town Michio had willingly stepped out of his comfort zone for, working hard behind the scenes to show parts of himself, through its scenery, to the world.

In a way, this town was where it all had started. Awajishima is their red string, fate connecting them together.

"You can ask us to bother your brother in your stead," Jirou settles with a private joke, his voice warm despite the attempt to laugh it off. He's not sure, even, if there are enough words that could have conveyed all of what he had wanted to say, in the end.

"Think of it as a little thank you gift, for coming to our live today, yeah?"

\---------

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> birthday fic for [Mackle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/makkuru)


	7. 011. Out Drinking [JiroRui +Hokuto]

“It’s tonight isn’t it?”

Jirou nearly jumps when he hears a voice suddenly, a flash of yellow, in tandem with his door clicking open.

“What?” He hopes the way he holds his hand to his heart isn’t a sign of his old age. It’s still beating a little too fast, a little too frantic, his breath coming a little short.

“Your date with Hokuto.”

If Rui notices any of that, though, he’s doing a very good job of hiding it. He stands his ground, leaning against the washing machine he never uses, arms crossed, gaze piercing.

It’s the most intimidating Jirou has ever seen Rui, and instantly, somehow, all fifteen centimetres he has over him means absolutely nothing.

“I wouldn’t call it a date―” he tries. He curls his finger around the strands of hair at his nape, looks away, over and out the low fence of their first floor corridor railing.

 _Garbage day is tomorrow,_ he thinks to himself. Murata-san from the floor above them is fighting off some cats from the disposal area. Rui probably hasn’t even put his together.

_That should be enough leverage to have over him when he comes back home later._

“ _Off!_ ”

_Or not._

It’s either Rui is a stealth master today, catching him off guard each time he speaks, or that it’s really telling of his age, that he feels a crick in his neck, snapping back to look at him.

“ _What?_ ” Jirou says again, squeakier this time.

“Your clothespin!” He thinks he might’ve Rui mutter further, _and the rest of your clothes, really,_ and then, as he all but charges him, shoving the offending article into his own pants pocket, _but none of mine would fit on you._ “You’re not embarrassing me in front of Hokuto!”

“You act like it’s a dinner with your parents' thing...” His shoulders finally drop – Jirou hadn’t realised he had been that tense – a long, defeated sigh signalling his downward tumble into begrudging resignation.

“It might as well be!” Rui fusses with his collar, straightens his tie, pats his chest, too, for extra good measure, but Jirou thinks he just wanted to cop a feel. He thinks he may have been allowed to breathe when Rui steps back, tapping the side of jaw all the while giving him a once-over. And another one.

_And another one._

“Oh. One more thing.”

Unfortunately, Jirou was not so easily spared just yet.

Rui reaches into his other pocket, a smile that leaves Jirou laughing nervously in response. He brandishes his usual tin of lip balm like an ultimate weapon, swirling his finger across the product once, twice, and then they’re back to standing toe to toe, this time equipped with enough smooth and subtle gloss enhanced power to finally – _finally,_ Jirou hopes – defeat the final boss.

“It smells like strawberries,” he mutters the best he can with his face scrunched together and Rui’s finger pressed onto his lips.

“Don’t you like the smell of strawberries, Mister Yamashita?” Rui asks, tilting his head.

“It smells cute on you...” Jirou sighs, his hand finding its way back to his nape. “I don’t think anyone wants an old man like me to smell like strawberries.”

“What are you talking about? _I do!_ ” Rui is still on his tiptoes when he takes a few steps backwards, his usual closed-eyed smile bubbling over into the surface as he’s unable to keep the theatrics in his mock offence.

“There. You’re perfect.” His voice is warm, soft with the mindful distance between them. “Go woo Hokuto so you can ask for my hand in marriage.”

“Isn’t he younger than you, _‘Maita-senpai?’_ ” Jirou chuckles, settling into the comfort of their usual cadence. A small part of him had honestly hoped for a small kiss at the end, but maybe, this is for the best.

Murata-san at disposal area is still trying to get one stray cat off the garbage netting. It isn’t all too dark yet out for them to be completely hidden, even with the lightbulb above their heads flickering its last lights off.

“ _Shhh._ Not the point.” Rui laughs, steering Jirou down the corridor by his shoulders.

They part at the stairs leading down to the road. He thinks he feels warmth, small, barely brushing at his shoulder blade. Turning back for a moment finds him with Rui, his ears a little red, a small wave goodbye.

“I’ll see you tonight, then, Mister Yamashita!”

“Yeah. Thank you.” Jirou smiles, waving back. “See you later.”


End file.
